An industrial arts teacher I know uses them for "Pull Aparts" to show kids how things work. They practice pulling the things apart. Examining how the connections are supposed to work. Sometimes manage to fix them or use the parts to fix other objects or make new tools.

In my community, the city dump has an electronic recycling department where they hire students to break down components and test so that as many parts can be reused. One of the schools has their students recycle computers to be given to families on welfare and anybody else who wants one. One of the thrift stores takes electronic waste to recycle. All high school students must do 40 hours of volunteer work to graduate, so this is a good placement for the geeky students. Again, the computers are given away. Look under recycling in your area. You may find something similar.

Our municipal waste yards collect scrap electrical and electronic goods for recycling. Some of the circuit components contain precious metals that can be salvaged; all metal can be anyway, but the plastic parts are more of a problem. Once I took a sack of scrap circuit-boards and other wiring parts from old computers and printers to a scrap-yard and was given a very reasonable amount of money for it.